Monday, September 1, 2014

Carlyle's Image Maintenance Cost $115 Million

The Carlyle Group's signature aim is to control the narrative by "maintaining its good name." The private equity underwriter (PEU) recently challenged five expert witnesses in the longstanding price-fixing collusion lawsuit brought by investors.

Carlyle moved to strikefive expert witnesses that the plaintiffs — a proposed class of
shareholders of companies bought out by the private equity firms — said
they planned to rely upon at a November antitrust trial in the case.

Carlyle had been holding out largely because its co-founders — David
Rubenstein, Dan D’Aniello and William Conway — were said to be
personally offended by the notion that they had been involved in an
illegal act, and who felt that any settlement would be a tacit admission
of wrongdoing.

Tacit admission it is:

The Carlyle Group has agreed to pay $115 million to settle its part in a massive private equity collusion case, Fortune has learned from a source close to the situation. A Carlyle spokesman declined comment.

How can this be? Name maintenance. Since companies are people for the purposes of election funding, they can also be people with damaged psyches.

The implicit goal of any primary narcissist is to maximize their
image in each and every present moment. There is no other criteria.
Anyone looking for core beliefs or fundamental truths will be driven
crazy by their ability to say the exact opposite position from five minutes
ago and treat you with complete and total disdain for suggesting they said anything
otherwise.

A Labor Day weekend news release should help that story sink to the bottom of the news ticker. Image maintenance achieved!

Insider Architect of the Implosion

"I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders."--Larry Summers, Ph.D.

Testimonials

The PEU Report is absolutely brilliant and has given me faith that someone out there has noticed what is going on in the world. --Ex-Bloomberg reporter

I really can't say enough how much I enjoy your commentary on PEU. You manage to dig into the details and sum it up in a way that is so succinct and entertaining.-Ex-Bloomberg reporter

When Tim Geithner, the former Treasury secretary, takes over as president of Warburg Pincus, the private-equity firm, even a high-school dropout can discern a pattern.-Another person who noticed